


I Want to Feel Like You've Let Me Go

by Sapphire09



Series: Il Mio Bambino- [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Bad Parenting, Betrayal, Childhood Trauma, Emotionally Compromised, Hurt Tony Stark, I have no idea how to tag this right, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Howard Stark, Psychological Trauma, Stockholm Syndrome, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Torture, Winteriron endgame, implied torture to a child, programmed tony stark, protective maria stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 11:33:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8370709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphire09/pseuds/Sapphire09
Summary: Fighting the Winter Soldier brought up memories--memories he tried to pretend never happened. He knew those empty eyes, understood the lack of feeling and sensation of driven only one objective, by logic and instinct alone.He understood it, personally.Didn't mean he would stand there and take a beating, though.Also didn't mean he had to let the fact the guy killed his parents go.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Winteriron endgame. Protective Howard and Maria Stark. Abusive Howard and Maria Stark. Stockholm Syndrome Tony. Because he still loves them. Rhodey knows. Mainly post Civil War, but then again this is probably better not tied up with any universe. Pretty dark, since there is also torture to a child. I don’t know how to tag this right. Nothing graphic, because I'm not sure I'm good with that.

As a kid, Tony was loved. His father’s love for him was cold and unnoticed, but it was protective and possessive the way fathers are. His pride for his genius son was silent and unannounced, but he encouraged Tony by letting him play with his tools, supervised by Jarvis and himself. However, he was easily distracted and had once or twice accidentally passed Tony his hot and recently used tools instead of Jarvis, which caused screaming and crying from Tony, and probably scarred the kid from being handed things ever again.

His mother’s love was more apparent, free in her hugs and kisses and embraces the way his father never were. She was free in her lullabies and goodnight kisses. She protected him by enveloping him in soft blankets and songs in his ears. He kept his silence around her, so he could hear her better. She sings her praises for his genius every day, then pulled him in the tightest embrace that he felt secure to the ground. 

But, as a kid, he had the softest heart. He was easily hurt by words and jeers and jealousy. Envy from other people made his heart bleed. His feelings were so easily hurt by others, and when he heard none of his friends actually liked him, his heart felt scabbed and poured in salt. Worse, it was hard for him to forget the hurts, to move on and let the wounds heal. His brain kept on replaying them, hurting him again and again like a childish torture.

_(Was it childish?)_

His mother hated to see him hurt, crying for days and hard to forget. His father hated it too, because his son was perfect. But, his heart was too soft, too much feeling, too hard to forget pain.

So, they thought he didn’t need to feel, if all it will bring is pain.

Somehow, somewhere, once upon a time Howard had perfected the Serum that someday in the future he would be killed for, the super soldier serum based on Captain America. He also found Zola’s method of brainwashing, the conditioning to make their subject not to feel, to remember. Implemented for soldiers and pawns, but Howard decided to use it for good, to erase pain instead of making others suffer. He wouldn't turn his son into brainless killing machine. Both him and Maria just wanted Tony's pain to disappear.

(The memories, replaced and deleted. The emotion, displaced and commanded to stay back.)

It was exactly what they wanted for Tony. They wanted stop his hurting, so he would never be hurt again. His future will still be long, and people around the Starks are betrayers and hypocrites and liars, and there are barbed wires along Tony's path as a Stark, especially as brilliant as he was. They just wanted Tony protected from future betrayals and heartache, from people who would use him and claim him and want him. 

It took them 3 years to perfect the conditioning. Maria chose the words, so Tony would not _forget how loved he was_.

 _Figlio. Sicuro. Quattro. Diletto. Lealtà. Tempo. Dormire. Piuma. Amore. Bambino._  
(Son. Secure. Four. Beloved. Loyalty. Time. Sleep. Feather. Love. Child)

 _Il mio bambino, noi ti amiamo così tanto._  
(My child, we love you so much)

Tony then became the perfect son. He didn’t feel, so he wouldn’t be hurt. His heart would be protected, in a golden cage made of their words of love and adoration. They regretted that they had to cover the cage with steel thorns, but they had to hurt him so the words would stick. However, three years of hurt against a lifetime without heartache, without pain, it was a good exchange (in their eyes).

Jarvis thought differently. 

He was horrified when he knew, when he noticed what his masters had done. Neither Maria nor Howard understood why Jarvis was horrified, because the man had loved Tony, too. The two years Tony had lived after the programming was done had proven that Tony was better as he is. Tony is safer, the safest than he had ever been than before. With the imitation of the super soldier serum in his vein, Tony would be harder to hurt, to injure. Even proven by his most recent bout of kidnapping, the kidnappers didn’t have much time to call ransom before Tony let himself out.

His parents were _proud_.

Jarvis was horrified.

“Sir, this is inhumane! You’ve turned your own son into a test subject– _an unfeeling subject!”_

 _“_ You do not understand, Jarvis! He was hurt, constantly! His heart was softer than his flesh, he bled it so easily. This is protection! This is so he wouldn’t ever be hurt again!”

Jarvis, horrified and scared for the Tony’s well being, took him away from his parents. The only reason neither Howard nor Maria retaliated was because Jarvis had been a family friend for so long, and neither of them actually wanted to hurt anyone. They believed Tony would return to them on his own. 

(Why wouldn't he?)

* * *

 

It took Jarvis another two years to return Tony into a semblance of normal.

“What did they do, Jarvis?” Tony asked, cried and cried as he remembered his three years of torture under his parents’ hands, for the sake of programming the words into his psyche, his brain.

“Why did they do it?”

He remembered their words of love, their reasoning. He remembered the pain and agony that followed. He remembered his too-small body strapped on a chair, his mother whispering sweet things in his ears ans his father turned it on, and  _on, and on._

Tony’s relationship became strained with his parents the more he remember, so far choosing Boarding School and quick getaway into MIT. His father let him, because as long as he went through education-

(Tony hated him. Tony loved him. Tony missed him-)

He met Rhodey, with a family that loved him and protected him and gave him praises and love and–

(He had that, once. A long time ago. Beyond his memories, beyond his torture, he once had them. Didn’t he?)

(He hated them. He feared them. He loved them. He missed them–)

_(I wanted–)_

He wanted, so Christmas break 1991, he came back to the house with the intent to understand, to try. Because he remembered having a childhood filled with love. He remembered being content, happy in their protection, their love.

( _It was wrong–I was hurt, but they told me–)_

His father, stern as always. Leaving with his mother at December 16th. A meeting, he had said. He told them not to say the words, any of the words. His mother looked sad.

“But, _mio figlio_ ,” Tony flinched, “We did what we’ve done so you wouldn’t be hurt.”

He pleaded.

Howard sighed.

“Okay, we won’t use it, if you hate it so much.”

His mother kissed his cheeks, smiling sadly.

“I miss you, my son. And your father might not say it, but he does miss you, too.”

Howard became impatient, motioning Maria to hurry, or they’re going to be late.

“It’s been such a long time since we celebrated Christmas together. We will be family again, and I will embrace you again, my son. Be good, Tony.”

They never came back that night.

Tony didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but he kept loving them and missing them–angry and confused and  _unresolved-_

Jarvis hugged him as his heart was torn by love and confusion and loss, and he wished he had known whether loving them still was right or had he gone insane already.

* * *

Three years after their death, he told Rhodey everything, under the influence of alcohol, right after Jarvis’ funeral.

Rhodey didn’t believe him at first.

But, when Rhodey visited him at the mansion, Tony showed him the chair. The documentation. The files. The _words_.

Rhodey had believed and cried after that, Tony in his embrace.

_("Why are you crying? It was a long time ago")_

After, Rhodey asked, “Does the triggers still work?”

Tony didn’t know.

He didn’t want to test it.

Rhodey didn’t either.

The people who might say the words were dead, and the one who might say the words accidentally was Obie, but he didn’t speak Italian.

Rhodey would never say them.

JARVIS was programmed to filter the words from his media.

Tony thought that would be the last of it. It became something of the past, even though it may have scarred him. He was still alive, while his parents are dead. He believed he had moved on.

_(He had to, he had to–)_

He partied hard, wasting money, and be as superficial as his parents had wanted ( _did they?_ ) him to be. Unfeeling ( _selfish_ ) while trying to be happy ( _try, try, try, but the feeling escaped him along with the buzz of alcohol and orgasms_ ).

Then there was Afghanistan, which changed him again. He suspected the only reason he was still alive through the open heart surgery was because of the Serum his father had injected into him all those years ago.

Again, he was tortured. Again, he was changed.

_(Same song, different tunes, but still he was affected and broken all over again)_

Then, he built Iron Man.

For once, he finally felt proud of what he became. He could be a hero this time. He could be like Captain America, in this part of his life.

(A phoenix rising from the ashes–only now he truly fells _alive)_

But, he was dying again. Now, the one thing keeping him alive was killing him. The only thing that saved him from keeling over sooner was the Serum.

Then, there was Natalie Rushman - a.k.a. Natasha Romanoff.

Then, there were aliens and the Avengers.

And then, he met Steve Rogers.

And this time, _this time_ , he hoped he was getting closer to being a hero.

_(”Like Captain America, dad?”_

_Then there was a grin, almost childish, as his father showed off the replica of Captain America’s shield. Tony had laughed, overcame with glee– ‘The best Halloween ever!’_

_“Like Captain America, son.”)_

But, of course, Ultron destroyed it, again.

Then there was the Accords.

Then the Fight – two sides, one group of friends.

( _Had they ever been friends?)_

And there _he_ was, at the epicenter of the chaos. The Winter Soldier. With his brainwashed brain and trigger words. How the soldier killed his parents–

_(We were supposed to celebrate Christmas together– I missed them, oh god I missed my mother–)_

There was anger and heartbreak in his heart, and he wished someone would whisper the words to him, make him unfeeling and unthinking so he would be free of the pain. But, no one knew but them (the dead could no longer speak), and Rhodey (he would never, ever–not even in anger or desperation, not for love and never in hate–).

He lashed out, and the Captain fought back.

_(Oh god, it hurts so much)_

They fought and fought, and the Captain bashed his shield against his chest and– _had he aimed for his head?_

The shield his father had made, one he had showed to Tony as a child, his prized invention, made of rare metal and careful calculation.

 _(Oh God, it hurts–_ _)_

* * *

 

“Is it better?” he asked one day to Vision. Vision simply tilted his head at the question, not understanding but still listening.

“Is it better,” he asked again, “To not feel or think, simply follow the path of logic and instinct, instead of getting distracted by hurt and love and pain and loss. To see things objectively, instead of letting emotion rule our choices?”

Vision had stared at him, no judgement found in the Android’s eyes. Rhodey was silent behind him, the whir of the exoskeleton prototype was loud in the silence.

“Emotion is non-essential for every being that lived,” Vision had answered. “But, I find that being able to feel is the same as being alive. If even a being made like me was able to get distracted by emotion, then when a human being lost the capacity to feel emotion, what does it mean for said human?”

Tony thought to the 2 years he was in Jarvis’ care, unfeeling and unhurt, yet neither was he ever happy or joyful.

_(But it hurts so much, so bad, now)_

_(I miss them, I hate them, I love them–I never got the chance to know)_

“Do you know, Vision?” Tony asked again. Vision had looked almost uncomfortable, but he asked back.

“What is it that I know, Mr. Stark?”

Tony glanced at Rhodey, who kept his undivided attention on their conversation. He looked so protective, tense and ready to face Vision if he had to.

(The people Tony could call friends were dwindling to two, and Vision must have known–)

“That I also have trigger words, and all that came with it.”

Vision nodded.

“Will you ever say those words, even when I asked you to?”

Vision shook his head.

“I do not wish to cause you harm. Perhaps, it was because of JARVIS’ coding in me, that I feel a kind of fondness for you, Mr. Stark. For all that I am not him, I do not think I want to see you harmed, in any way. My distraction had caused harm for your best friend, and I don’t think I can ever move past that without you, despite Mr. Rhodes’ forgiveness.”

Tony looked at Vision before he nodded to acknowledge the Android’s words. 

It still hurts, and sometimes he wished someone would just say the words to him, so he would stop hurting. But, sometimes, he was glad the two people that knew wouldn’t, not even in his request. When Rhodey would joke and tease him, when Vision would cook his favorite food clumsily– (even Pepper, when she would call and berate and told him she missed him and ‘are you alright?’ and ‘I will kick their asses when I see them again’ and ‘that god-damned Captain-fucking-America, who the hell does he think he is?’) he remembered he still has friends, people that cared about him and he didn’t want to lose the warmth in his chest.

It still hurts, the way betrayals are. The ache was familiar and no less hurting. But, he was able to move on from Obie’s–from his parents’. He could work on it again, his friends still by his side.

But then, _then–_

_Of course it wouldn’t be that easy._

* * *

“T’Challa?”

“We have a problem. A portal opened on Wakanda’s sky.”

“What? Is it aliens again?”

“..No. Our experts think it’s a time portal–or something like it. And–Tony, I need you to calm down.”

“Why?”

“Because–it’s your parents. Tony, your parents came from the portal before it disappeared, and now they’re in Wakanda and demanding to see you.”

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr link: http://valeriacreativecenter.tumblr.com/post/152246314885/fanfic-idea-wstony


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